Everyone once in awhile–sometimes around Groundhog Day–our former colleague emerges to post some entertaining comments about a significant development in the law. These remarks about a SCOTUSblog “petition of the day” filed in Ohio v. Hand, now pending, were cut and pasted from Bill’s Facebook page. Can a prior juvenile delinquency adjudication, obtained without affording the right to a… Read more
E. Enhancers
The Supreme Court of Ohio recently answered that question “no.” State v. Hand, 2016 Ohio 5504, 2016 WL 4486068, 8/25/16. Hand rejects the majority position on this question, and instead adopts the position of the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Tighe, 266 F.3d 1187 (9th Cir. 2001), holding that the lack of a jury trial in juvenile… Read more
Charles Walker v. Kathy Griffin, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals No. 15-2147, 2016 WL 4501988, 8/29/16 Walker’s lawyer on his direct state appeal decided to challenge the reasonableness of Walker’s sentence, but he didn’t raise an issue about the sufficiency of the evidence to support applying an habitual offender enhancer to Walker. That failure didn’t constitute… Read more
State v. Ronald Marshall Jewett, 2015AP1014-CR, District 3, 8/30/16 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs) The question presented in this case is whether a certified driving record from the Wisconsin DOT is sufficient evidence to establish 2 prior OWI convictions in Minnesota–even though the original court records for those convictions no longer exist. The… Read more
Walker Whatley v. Dushan Zatecky, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals No. 14-2534, 2016 WL 4269805, 8/15/16 The maximum penalty for Whatley’s drug possession conviction was dramatically increased—from 2-to-8 years to 20-to-50 years—under a now-repealed Indiana penalty enhancer for drug offenses committed within 1,000 feet of a “youth program center,” defined as a “building or structure that… Read more
State v. Jason R. Cooper, 2016 WI App 63; case activity (including briefs) While a conviction for a motor vehicle offense can’t be used to establish a defendant’s repeater status under § 939.62, time a defendant spent in custody serving a sentence for a motor vehicle is still excluded when computing whether any prior convictions for… Read more
State v. Mark G. McCaskill, 2015AP1487-CR, District 4, 7/21/16 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs) McCaskill’s challenges to his arrest and conviction for operating with a prohibited alcohol content don’t persuade the court of appeals. At 12:30 a.m. an officer found McCaskill in the driver’s seat of a car parked with its lights on… Read more
State v. James D. Heidke, 2016 WI App 55; case activity (including briefs) The state charged Heidke with one count of use of a computer to facilitate a child sex crime. Heidke moved to dismiss the penalty enhancer in §939.617(1) because it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth and Eighth Amendments in that it… Read more
